MELENCOLIA APP

MELENCOLIA APP was developed as a prologue and epilogue for the world premiere of the music theater show MELENCOLIA by Muntendorf/Lobeck, a work commissioned by Bregenzer Festspiele and Ensemble Modern. But it also works anytime and anywhere: If you have the app installed on your smartphone or tablet and use it to scan the MELENCOLIA QR codes, you can bring various AR creatures to life.

Multiple User App

The unique feature of the MELENCOLIA APP is the fact that the music complements itself to a polyphonic choir as soon as different users use the app at the same time. Up to six audio tracks are linked to the different creatures. If several people use the app at the same time in one place, the different soundtracks complement each other via the individual speakers to form a cell phone chorus. The more people use the app at the same time in one place, the more polyphonic the environment becomes.

How to use MELENCOLIA APP

If the MELENCOLIA APP is presented as an AR installation in public spaces or event venues, QR codes are provided at certain positions to download the app from the App Store or Google Play Store by scanning one of the MELENCOLIA QR codes. Once the app is installed, scanning the same QR codes will bring the MELENCOLIA Augmented-Reality-Creatures into your environment. You can test the app by scanning the QR codes below – just be aware that the positioning of the creatures happens where the codes are scanned with your smartphone or tablet.

Direct download of MELENCOLIA APP

You can also download the MELENCOLIA-APP directly in the App Store (Apple User) or in the Google Play Store (Android User). After installing the app, you can scan the codes pictured above.

About

Over centuries and cultures, melancholy experienced the most contradictory attributions; it was considered a physical illness as well as a moment of contemplation, a possibility of overcoming earthly suffering and a sister of genius. Albrecht Dürer’s enigmatic creatures in his equally enigmatic copperplate engraving “Melencolia I” have become emblematic of these contradictions and the insoluble amidst human longing for redemption.

Based on Dürer’s world, the music theater show MELENCOLIA establishes a melancholic playground of the kind that seems to have been lost to our overstimulated tired societies and the new, colonized digital worlds. With the MELENCOLIA APP you have the chance to bring Dürer’s creatures into the now with the help of your smartphone or tablet and become part of a temporary melancholic community yourself.